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| Tampa, Florida -
You read it in the paper everyday. Some resident of a homeowner association loses his home to a well heeled lawyer, or some blue collar property owners lose their homes to a rich developer under Eminent Domain. These are ways to cover up profiling or red lining against minority owners, "the meek, the weak and the uninformed,".
You should check your phone book for the number of the State Bar or go online and use a search engine such as Google to find the State Bar for your particular state.
Ask them to mail you the Rules and Regulations covering conflicts of interest or adverse interests to protect your rights. Some of this information is available on web sites. Remember the State Bar and the National Bar make rules and regulations for all lawyers but they do not police the membership or enforce them unless you file a complaint or one of these lawyers ends up in the headlines.
The California Bar covers this in Rule 3-310. Avoiding the Representation of Adverse Interests. ( It is always important when you complain about a lawyer or official to quote the county, state or federal law violated because it motivates law enforcement agencies to take stronger measures when you define what they did wrong in their own language!)
For purposes of this lesson, we will focus on Rule 3-310, Avoiding Adverse Interests or Conflict of Interests( especially those with financial gains!)
(a)"Disclosure" means informing the client or former client of the relevant circumstances and of the actual and reasonably foreseeable adverse consequences to the client or former client..
For Example:
A law firm in California represented a client in a water damage suit which resulted in the Plaintiff getting an injunction against the defendant Homeowners Association to stop hillside watering.
The same law firm that was paid to settle the water damage case, later represented the same Homeowners Association in wrongfully suing a hillside resident who restricted the use of the association sprinkler system to comply with the injunction. This is an example of an adverse interest, because that law firm knew they were aiding and abetting this homeowner in violating the injunction, and thus liable to be held in contempt, and to face fines and charges for violating the injunction.
(2) Informed written consent, means the clients or former client's written agreement to the representation following written disclosure etc.
Many CLAC and CAI lawyers violate this by failure to disclose agreements they even owned property in the Homeowners Associations they advised to sue and used managers to share confidential information to assist selective law enforcement in profiling cases.
(3) Written means any writing as defined in Evidence Code 250( California) check your State Bar for number of ruling...
(B) A member shall NOT accept or continue representation of a client without providing written disclosure to the client where:
(1) The member has a legal business, financial professional, or personal relationship with a party or witness in the same matter or
(2) The member knows or reasonably should know that:
(a) the member previously had a legal, business. financial, professional, or personal relationship with or was a witness in the same manner, and
(b) the previous relationship would substantially affect the member's representation; or
(3) The member has or had a legal, business, financial, professional, or personal relationship; or with another person or entity the member knows or reasonably should know would be affected substantially by resolution of the matter; or
(4) The member has or had a legal, business, financial, or professional interest in the subject matter of the representation.
Note: this is dangerous territory when a HOA Board Director has a license to sell Real Estate, Insurance or serves on a city council etc because they have access to confidential information that can give them a double advantage in Adverse Interests...
It is also true of vendors who are friends with managers, directors or lawyers and even accept expensive gifts that can be construed as bribes. For example, some vendors offer free roofing jobs, landscaping, patio work, carpet upgrades etc. which give them a financial interest.
(C) A member shall not, without the informed written consent, or professional interest in the subject matter of each client:
(1) Accept representation of more than one client in a matter in which the interests of the clients potentially conflict; or
(2) Accept or continue representation of more than one client in a matter in which the interests of the clients actually conflict; or
(3) Represent a client in a matter and at the same time in a separate matter or accept as a client a person or entity whose interest in the first matter is adverse to the client in the first matter.
(D) A member who represents two or more clients shall not enter into an aggregate settlement of the claims of or against the clients without the informed consent of each client...
These are just a few conflict of interest rules broken daily that must be watched to help citizens avoid costly litigation because "Unethical actions" take place everyday and our good friend
Ben Franklin warned us, "A penny saved is a penny earned, " but many of the smoothies operate under the rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules, " and the average State Bar only meets a couple of times a month and how many ways their members break rules if we don't educate them.
This may be an extreme example of adverse interest acting under color of law but a small town police chief allowed friends to serve as "volunteer police officers" and write traffic violations that were not legitimate, like parking in your own drive fully aware his "volunteer" officer had a vendetta against a neighbor and issued traffic fines on private property where the real police officer had no authority to write tickets in the first place.
Police rely on traffic ticket fines for budget funds but it is a violation of public trust and fraud to allow an untrained, un-bonded private citizen write bogus tickets posing as a city police officer and should be investigated by the state attorney etc. Trust me it happens, and it will continue unless the public gets wise, and reports violations. Always check the patrolman's badge number and verify you have a trained, licensed officer-not an impostor!
Another example is a Florida Senator named Childers, who accepted a free roof on his home from a contractor. His committee was investigating the building of defective homes. The free roof was valued at $5,000 and after he got the roof he said the state should drop the investigation agains the builder because it cost too much to proceed...ha!
Another real and present danger nationwide is the lobby group of Home Builders like the National Association of Home Builders, aka, Florida Association of Home Builders etc who lobby the state contractor's license board to weaken safety codes and ignore complaints of defective building under the home warranty. The lobby lawyers are highly paid to help developers and contractors increase profit by doing a shoddy and sloppy job. Many serious defects cost homeowners a bundle like the 4,000 Henry Homes in Tampa, FL. The Florida State Contractor's License Board actually agreed to avoid investigating any defective home building complaint covered under the warranty for six months after said complaint was made. than allow the lobby group to decide it has merit.
Talk about conflicts and adverse interest. The state contractor's license board depends on contractor license fees for much of their budget and the lobby group depends on the membership dues of contractors for 100% of their funding...this is double jeopardy!
If we report every adverse interest we would need a book the size of my dictionary but you should get the drift from the examples I have listed. Remember the words of wise Will Rogers who said, "Every time congress tells a joke it becomes a law and every time they pass a law it becomes a joke"> But the high cost of violating laws is not a joke in terms of safety or investments so let's hold their feet to the fire.
Excerpts from By What Authority a new book by Willowdean Vance
© Willowdean Vance 2003.
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